Observation of false vacuum decay via bubble formation in ferromagnetic superfluids

TL;DR

This paper reports the first experimental observation of false vacuum decay through bubble formation in ferromagnetic superfluids, demonstrating a controllable quantum simulation of a fundamental quantum field theory process.

Contribution

It provides the first experimental evidence of false vacuum decay in atomic systems, bridging quantum field theory and condensed matter physics.

Findings

Observation of bubble nucleation in superfluid atomic systems

Good agreement with numerical simulations and instanton theory

Potential for emulating out-of-equilibrium quantum phenomena

Abstract

In quantum field theory, the decay of an extended metastable state into the real ground state is known as ``false vacuum decay'' and it takes place via the nucleation of spatially localized bubbles. Despite the large theoretical effort to estimate the nucleation rate, experimental observations were still missing. Here, we observe bubble nucleation in isolated and highly controllable superfluid atomic systems, and we find good agreement between our results, numerical simulations and instanton theory opening the way to the emulation of out-of-equilibrium quantum field phenomena in atomic systems.